slozos

Q: El Capitan upgrade - Search not working in Mail or iCal

I've seen many people have this issue with no solutions. Ever since I upgraded to El Capitan, my search function is not working properly in Mail or iCal. It works for some items (it seems to work for older items, but not new items), but my job demands that it work for EVERYTHING. This is severely handicapping me on an hourly basis. I've attempted all the fixes that the forums suggest - rebuilding, re-indexing, etc. Nothing is working. Is there ANY solution? I'm pulling my hair out.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)

Posted on Jan 15, 2016 8:34 AM

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Q: El Capitan upgrade - Search not working in Mail or iCal

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  • by SengLoke,

    SengLoke SengLoke Feb 8, 2016 8:29 AM in response to slozos
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 8, 2016 8:29 AM in response to slozos

    Searching for an email using spotlight works but typing the same search keywords in the search box in Mail doesn't - strange.

     

    I saw so many postings from several years back on this issue - why has it not been resolved by Apple?

  • by ikbenut,

    ikbenut ikbenut Feb 17, 2016 6:10 AM in response to SengLoke
    Level 1 (0 points)
    iLife
    Feb 17, 2016 6:10 AM in response to SengLoke

    Hello,

     

    I just did an mirgrate from older mac to a new one and had the same problem that mails were not available in spotlight/mailsearch.

    However i found out that when i read a random mail and did a search it was found later. So i selected all messages with cmd+a , did a "mark as unread" and then a "Mark as Read", and now i can search from within mail.

  • by nickfit888,

    nickfit888 nickfit888 Feb 21, 2016 7:47 PM in response to ikbenut
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Feb 21, 2016 7:47 PM in response to ikbenut

    I've had the same problem as well.  I did recently added an SSD drive to my 2012 13" i7 macbook pro in the optic bay slot.  Everything works great except for this.

  • by coloscott,

    coloscott coloscott Feb 24, 2016 8:37 PM in response to ikbenut
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 24, 2016 8:37 PM in response to ikbenut

    I have been using El Capitan since it came out, and I never had this problem until today. I bought a new MBP and migrated all my data here, and suddenly I couldn't search email. I tried ikbenut's solution, and it worked fine. Now all is well with my mail again.

     

    SOLUTION:

    select all messages (cmd-a)

    mark all messages read

    mark all messages unread

  • by NWA4,

    NWA4 NWA4 Mar 9, 2016 2:00 PM in response to ikbenut
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 9, 2016 2:00 PM in response to ikbenut

    I also did a migrate from a 2010 MBP and, among other El Capitan weirdeness, the search function stopped working in Mail but worked in Spotlight. I selected all emails, marked them as "un-read" then as "read" and now Mail search works fine. Thanks very much for the fix!

     

    Now if I could just get Spotlight to show Folders in the search results or iCal to stop hanging when connecting to the server, or full screen in Sketchup 2016 to stop randomly closing..........

  • by nickfit888,

    nickfit888 nickfit888 Mar 9, 2016 8:53 PM in response to NWA4
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mar 9, 2016 8:53 PM in response to NWA4

    I've tried this and unfortunately no luck...

  • by Mac$,

    Mac$ Mac$ Mar 17, 2016 3:23 AM in response to coloscott
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 17, 2016 3:23 AM in response to coloscott

    Ok this did work for me. I hope a better solution is found by Apple because this is not acceptable.

  • by zBernie2,

    zBernie2 zBernie2 May 1, 2016 7:10 PM in response to Mac$
    Level 1 (5 points)
    May 1, 2016 7:10 PM in response to Mac$

    I can't believe there are so many posts regarding the inability to search email, with no real solutions!  I tried all of the fixes below and still cannot search my email on my MBP, or my iMac.  Apple needs to fix this, it is crucial to be able to search email!

     

    1.  /Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.appsandbox UnrestrictSpotlightContainerScope -bool true

    -bash: /Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.appsandbox: No such file or directory

     

    2. Removed all files that begin with Envelope* in ~/Library/Mail/V3/MailData.

     

    3. Rebuilt all of my mailboxes.

     

    4. Signed out of then back into icloud.

     

    5. Tried disabling my gmail account.

     

    6. select all messages (cmd-a)

        mark all messages read

        mark all messages unread

  • by zBernie2,

    zBernie2 zBernie2 May 3, 2016 7:37 PM in response to slozos
    Level 1 (5 points)
    May 3, 2016 7:37 PM in response to slozos

    I tried numerous fixes in this and other threads, but nothing worked until now.  If you have a .metadata_never_index in a directory, it will not be indexed.  I happened to have one in my root / directory!  I removed it, and now I can search email, and spotlight is functioning normally again.  Here's all I did:

     

    cd /

    sudo rm .metadata_never_index

  • by nickfit888,

    nickfit888 nickfit888 Jul 18, 2016 10:31 AM in response to slozos
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jul 18, 2016 10:31 AM in response to slozos


    I recently got a new SSD drive and cloned my old one over to it. I installed it into the Main HD bay of my mid 2012 MacBook pro and still had the same problem in mail. I ended up reinstalling OSX over the existing one:

    How to reinstall OS X - Apple Support

    I picked the option to keep my personal data so I wouldn't have to restore anything. After that mail search works now!

     

    Thanks,

    John

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